Hybels quote on the local church

In my younger days, I used to read a fair amount of stuff by Bill Hybels, the pastor at Willow Creek. I have not read anything by him in a long time — not sure why that is?

Anyway, I picked a book off of his, of my shelf this week — Courageous Leadership:

The book has really challenged me, and blessed me at the same time. I am not sure if I agree 100% with everything he says about the local church, but the vast majority of it — is great stuff.

Here is a one quote that especially gripped me. He is talking about working with people in Washington D.C. :

Ã¢â‚¬Å“What I discovered was not how powerful those people are, but how limited their power really is. All they can do is rearrange the yard markers on the field of life. They canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t change a human heart. They canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t heal a wounded soul. They canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t turn hatred into love. They canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t bring about repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace. They canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t get to the core problem! Businessmen can provide sorely needed jobs. Wise educators can teach useful knowledge of the world. Self-help programs can offer effective methods of behavior modification. Advanced psychological techniques can aid self-understanding. And all this is good, but can any of it truly transform the human heart?

I believe that only one power exists on this sorry planet that can do that. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s the power of the love of Jesus ChristÃ¢â‚¬â€?the love that conquers sin and wipes out shame and heals wounds and reconciles enemies and patches broken dreams and ultimately changes the world one life at a time. And what grips my heart every day is the knowledge that the radical message of that transforming love has been given to the church.

This means the future of the world rests in the hands of local congregations like yours and mine. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s the church or itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s lights out. Without churches so filled with the power of God that they canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t help but spill goodness and peace and love and joy into the world, depravity will win the day; evil will flood the world. But it doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have to happen that way. Strong, growing communities of faith can turn the tide of history.Ã¢â‚¬?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out, that it caused me to think about Kairos & what we are trying to do – through the power of God, to advance the Kingdom out here.

It only worries me when I think on the ‘local church’. I can be..though wrong of me..cynical about churches today. Not all of them, of course. But it feels like so many of them aren’t pushing for world changers or heart changers.. They’re just pushing for some nice, safe religion.

I think..honestly..depravitiy has been winning. Though I take hope that it seems we (the American church) is slowly awakening.. but there is so much work still to be done… Just to be the basic idea of what we should be. Just to begin spilling out that goodness, peace, love, and joy.

brightseraphim — I agree with you, in the sense that the ‘local church’ is surely not the only outpouring of God’s blessing today. This is from Scot McKnight — over at jesuscreed.org :
‘We know BarnaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s numbers are that there are somewhere between 5 and 20 million Christians in North America who are pursuing alternative forms of spiritual formation. Dr. David Barrett and Todd Johnson, in their study, conclude there are 125 million Christians without a church. Hirsch taps into this number to argue that it is here that the renewal of the Church is occurring. There are over 20,000 independent movements and networks among such Christians.’

I beg to differ from you. If you think of advancing the Kingdom through the power of God, then it may happen that none of its inhabitants survive to see that progress.

If you look back at the history of Civilizations, as well as Modern History, the mere idea/notion of God has taken more lives than given. There is no point believing in the power of God when you have enough strength to do what you want to.

There have been religious wars, and what not. ‘God’ is just a figment of imagination, which each of us likes to believe in because one can always turn to Him for support, for strength, for purification against sins, for solving problems – for giving a virtual life that one would wish to lead really, but which is not possible otherwise.

What in the world is this prateelchaturvedi1 thinking, anyway?! We need to connect more to the powert of God and the HolySpirit. The problem is that we rely too much on our own power. God is our source. See my blog today: kelund.wordpress.com